The 10 Most Popular Photos on Twitter This Week [PICS]

There are millions of photos linked in tweets each week, but we’ve looked for the ones that resonated the most with Twitterusers. We’ve narrowed them down for you, sifting through 26 million tweets, and found the 10 most popular photos on Twitter, posted between Dec. 16 and 22.

How on earth did we choose these? First of all, we left out spam advertisements for events, and we’ve also eliminated photos from non-English-speaking countries. The pics were all compiled for Mashablevby real-time photo search engine Skylines. Keep in mind that if you click through to the pics’ originating pages, the number counts might be different because Skyline made its determination a couple days ago.

This week, Justin Bieber heads up the top of the list as is his wont, filling the top two slots and appearing twice more. Further down the celebrity-spangled list, you’ll see Taylor Swift again, occupying the same position she did last week. Keep clicking through our gallery, and you’ll even see a couple of surprises.

Peruse and enjoy the 10 most popular photos on Twitter this week:

1. Bieber's Celebrity Friends

It seems like Justin Bieber’s popularity hasn’t decreased much in the last couple of weeks. In fact, Justin’s pictures have a bigger share in this week’s top 10 than they did last week. This picture shows Bieber surrounded by several other celebrities. From left to right (according to this source) : Jay-Z, Rashida Jones and Kanye West, Aziz Ansari, Justin Bieber, Kid Cudi and sitting in front of them is Tyler, the Creator. It is unclear where this picture was taken. A rumor says they may be preparing a show for New Year’s Eve. It was posted by Bieber on December 20 and the tweet only reads: "#SWAG."

2. Begging for Bieber

Similar to last week’s top 10, another picture posted by Justin Bieber follows right after. The picture shows a man that is "begging" for money to get Justin Bieber’s Christmas album, presumably as a joke. Bieber’s tweet implied that Instagram user @bieberislife was the source for this picture.

3. One Direction Claims Third Position Again

So far, the pattern in this week’s most-retweeted pictures is similar to that in last week’s: The first two positions are taken by photos by Justin Bieber and the third is by a member from UK boyband One Direction, Liam Payne (@Real_Liam_Payne, 900.000+ followers). This picture (“Anything goes wen the boys are on tour’’) shows another One Direction member named Niall Horan (@NiallOfficial, 850.000+ followers), sleeping on top of a pair of suitcases.

4. Bieber donates $100.000 to Las Vegas School

Justin Bieber clearly dominated this week’s Twitter pictures with 4 pictures in the top 10. On December 16, Justin Bieber performed a couple of songs from his Christmas album Under the Mistletoe at Whitney Elementary School in Las Vegas. After that, he donated $100.000 to the school, that is nationally-renowned for providing its needy students and their families with food, clothing, health services and rent checks, since most of them are poor, or even homeless. This picture shows the school’s principal Sherry Gahn, who had just received the donation from Justin Bieber, who is standing next to her.

5. Hair Drawing

This photo of a girl, presumably with cancer, drawing hair on her head in the mirror, was last week’s number 4. It was also in a top 10 from last month. At the time it was tweeted by @HeyItsRemi, a California woman with a little more than 9,300 followers when she posted the image to Twitter, along with the tweet: “if you look at this picture and not retweet you are heartless.” There wasn’t any text in the image itself. Two weeks ago, the picture, which was edited with the text that is shown on this picture, was tweeted by @castronovology (200+ followers), who tweeted it along with ‘How many RT’s can this little girl get? ♥’. This week, the same image was posted along with the same tweet by @Jake_Rosenbauer (500+ followers).

6. Bieber Meets Stevie Wonder

Last week, this spot in the top 10 was taken by Zayn Malik, another One Direction member. This week, though, it was claimed by Justin Bieber, who has a total of 4 pictures in this week’s top 10. On December 17, Justin Bieber and rapper/singer Drake performed at Stevie Wonder’s 16th annual House Full of Toys benefit concert in Los Angeles. This picture shows Bieber with Stevie Wonder. Bieber also tweeted a video on this performance: “me and STEVIE WONDER 4 years after i first sang this song singing it together. DREAMS DO COME TRUE - http://youtu.be/UV2uBS7b1kk”.

7. Club World Cup Champions 2011

On December 17, Spanish soccer club FC Barcelona beat Brazil’s Santos in the Club World Cup finals with 4-0, to win their second Club World Cup in three years. Central Midfielder Cesc Fabrégas Soler (@cesc4official, over 2 million followers) tweeted this picture of him and coplayer Andrés Iniesta holding the trophy they won, posted along with the tweet: “WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.”

8. 2011's Wrestling Champions

This picture by wrestler CM Punk (@CMPunk, 500.000+ followers) shows himself next to Daniel Bryan, showing the title belts they won in the past year. CM Punk is this year’s World Wrestling Entertainment champion, and Daniel Bryan is 2011’s world heavyweight champion. CM Punk said: “Two Indy schmucks didn't do so bad, Eh?”.

9. Taylor Swift and Her Cat

Taylor Swift’s (@taylorswift13, over 9 milllion followers) shoes were 9th in last week’s top 10. This week, in the same position, is a picture of her and her cat (“Me and Meredith on a Sunday afternoon.”).

10. Dirty Joke

This screencapture of a "mobile conversation" was tweeted by @ThisQuotingTeen (1400+ followers).